


The King is Dead…

by mithrel



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Blanket Permission, M/M, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-24
Updated: 2009-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:06:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is crowned King.  He’s not ready for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King is Dead…

When Merlin came in to start picking up Arthur’s room, he wasn’t there. He came in about ten minutes after he’d started.

Merlin immediately dropped into a bow. “Your Majesty.”

“Dammit, Merlin, not you too!” Arthur growled, throwing the crown he wore onto the bed. “You never fawned over me before, why should you start now?”

“Well, that was different, wasn’t it?” he pointed out, retrieving the crown and setting it carefully on the table. “You weren’t the King then.”

Uther had died last week, leading a charge, a casualty of the war with Mercia, and Arthur had just been formally crowned.

“I wish I wasn’t now. I’m going to have to make all kinds of concessions to Mercia to stop this war! I’m not ready for this!”

The look in his eyes, so like a lost child, a look Merlin had seen only a few times before, broke his heart. “Maybe not, but that’s why you have advisors.”

“I don’t know if I can do this. I’m not a ruler, not really!”

“You care about your people, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course I do!” Arthur said, the unspoken “idiot” loud in his tone.

“And you always try to do what’s right?” he continued.

“You know I do!”

“Well, just do your best, and it will all work out.”

“But what if my best isn’t good enough?”

Arthur approached him, a strange look on his face. “You won’t leave? Now that I’m king?”

Merlin gaped at him. “Are you mad? Why would I?”

Arthur smiled then, softly. “Good. I need you, Merlin.”

Merlin narrowed his eyes, not sure what was happening, when Arthur reached up and put a hand on his cheek.

He should have flinched away, but he didn’t. Arthur leaned in, and kissed him softly.

Merlin’s eyes fluttered closed, and he kissed him back, wondering what the hell was wrong with Arthur.

Arthur’s hand came up to stroke his neck, and his tongue pushed into Merlin’s mouth. He moaned at the feel of it.

Arthur pulled away, then looked at him. “Well, that’s over.”

Merlin gaped at him again. “That’s…you… _what’s_ over?!”

“Our first kiss. I wanted to do it properly, before I ravish you.”

“Before you _what?!_ ” Not that he had any objections, mind you, he’d just like to know where this was coming from.

Arthur sighed, and crossed his arms. “Everyone in my life has expected something of me—Father, Morgana, the Court, everyone. Now that I’m King it’s even worse.” He fixed Merlin with a piercing stare. “You’re the only one who hasn’t wanted something from me.”

Merlin walked over to him and pushed his coat off. “But why now?”

“Like I said, everyone expected something from me,” Arthur said, pulling off Merlin’s neckerchief and mouthing his throat. “My father expected me to be a ‘proper man.’ But I’m King now; I don’t have to answer to anyone.”

Merlin moaned again, reaching out to fumble with the laces on Arthur’s shirt, the task made difficult by the fact that Arthur had moved up to lick behind his ear. He finally pulled it off, and went to kneel, but Arthur pulled him up.

“No. I don’t want you to do that. No submission.”

“All right,” he agreed, more or less willing to go along with anything Arthur wanted at this point.

Arthur took his hand and led him to the bed. He pushed him down onto it, and followed him down, kissing him again.

Merlin didn’t notice when Arthur took off his shirt, until he felt lips around his nipples. He arched up, reaching out to card his fingers through Arthur’s hair. Then his breeches were open, and then on the floor, and he moaned as the pressure was released.

He divested Arthur of his breeches as well, and he took a moment to just look at him, golden skin shining in the firelight, his hair an argent nimbus.

Arthur fidgeted under his scrutiny, but Merlin cupped the back of his neck and drew him down for another kiss.

Merlin rolled them over, so they lay side by side, and reached out for him. Arthur moaned at the feel of Merlin’s hand on him, and reached out to return the favor.

Merlin bucked into the touch. “Gods!”

“Who am I?” Arthur demanded.

“What?” he asked, his brain fogged from the sensations rushing through his blood.

“ _Who am I?_ ” Arthur repeated.

“The…the King…” Even now he couldn’t forget that.

Arthur’s hand turned punishing. “Who am I?”

He gasped. “You’re…you’re Uther’s son.”

Suddenly Arthur pulled away. Merlin moaned at the loss, as Arthur loomed over him. “Merlin. Who. Am. I?”

“Oh, gods, Arthur, please…”

“Answer the question!”

“You’re Arthur!”

Arthur grinned suddenly, and then Merlin was chanting the name over and over, his hand still moving between them, “Arthur, Arthur… _Arthur!_ ”

And he came, his hand convulsing. Arthur followed him, bucking against him, with a strangled, “Fuck, _Merlin!_ ”

When he’d recovered a bit, Merlin looked at him. “What was that all about?”

“I’m Arthur. To you, whatever else I may be, I’m always Arthur. I want you to remember that.”

Merlin nodded, understanding.

“I’m my own man. I don’t want to be compared to my father.”

Merlin sat up, suddenly serious. “You have the chance to make Camelot a kingdom that the world will envy.”

Arthur looked doubtful of that. “I want to make you one of my advisors,” he announced.

“What?” Merlin laughed. “ _Me?_ I’m nobody! I’m a peasant, I can’t be an advisor!”

“Well, could you…could I talk to you? Occasionally? Your advice has always been good.” Arthur mumbled the request, not looking at him.

Merlin smiled, seeing an opportunity. “Of course. I do have one thing I think you should do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Repeal the ban on magic,” he said, bracing himself for Arthur’s reaction.

“What? But magic is evil!”

“It is _not_ evil!” Merlin burst out, springing up from the bed to pace, heedless of his nakedness. “It’s not evil any more than a sword or a hammer is evil! It’s a tool, nothing more! What it can do depends on how you use it!”

“But sorcerers keep attacking the kingdom!” Arthur shouted at him.

“Yeah? And just why do you think that is? If you were in danger, wouldn’t you do anything possible to remove that danger? Most of the magical troubles in the kingdom Uther brought on himself!” he snapped, practically shouting in frustration, sick of hearing about how evil magic was, how sorcerers were wicked monsters out to destroy the kingdom.

“Why do you feel so strongly about this?” Arthur asked suspiciously.

“Because _I’m_ a sorcerer,” he shouted, suddenly unable to keep from telling Arthur the truth a moment longer.

“You are not!” Arthur scoffed.

Stung, Merlin admitted things he probably shouldn’t have, “I am! I slowed the dagger down so I could shove you out of the way in time, I released the snakes on Valiant’s shield so Uther could see what he was, I called up the whirlwind in Ealdor!”

“Prove it!”

Merlin held out a hand. “ _Fromām feogiftam fiedel per me._ ”

A globe of white light appeared, hovering in his hand.

“That light! I’ve seen it before, in the cave…” Arthur broke off. “That was you?”

“According to Gaius, yes.”

“You saved my life.”

“I saved my own life,” he said, dismissing the light with a whispered word. “If you hadn’t got back with the mortaeus flower, I’d have died.”

“You really are a sorcerer,” Arthur whispered, staring at him as if Merlin had changed into something altogether strange and possibly treacherous.

“I really am.”

“But you can’t be! You’re not evil!”

“Well, if sorcerers are evil, I’m a sorcerer, and I’m not evil then the syllogism must be flawed, mustn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” Arthur said, but he still looked doubtful.

“Have I ever hurt you?”

“No.”

“Or the Kingdom? Or Uther?”

“Well, no...”

“Have I ever, as far as you know, hurt _anyone_ , except when I’m defending myself or someone else?”

Arthur thought about it. “I suppose not.”

“So can you agree that I’m not evil?” he asked, with a small smile.

“I already said you weren’t, didn’t I? That’s what’s giving me problems.”

“Why?”

Arthur thought about this for a moment. “I expect it’s because I’ve never come across someone who used magic for good. Harmless people my father decided were conspiring against the kingdom, yes…”

“And you defended them.”

“For all the good it did,” he said bitterly.

“You have the chance to do some good now,” he said, getting back into the bed, and, when Arthur didn’t object, cautiously nestling against his shoulder. “Will you repeal the ban on magic?”

“I’ll…think about it.”

“And this…” he asked, gesturing to them. “Was this just a one-time thing?”

“Why, do you want it to be?”

“ _No!_ ” he blurted, and Arthur smiled. “But I–I didn’t think you’d want to, after…”

Arthur sighed. “Just…let me get used to the idea, okay?”

Merlin nodded. Arthur’s reaction was more than he could have realistically hoped for. He was raised by a man whose hatred of magic approached fanaticism, after all.

Arthur turned to look at him. “I might have to start treating you better. I wouldn’t want you incinerating me in a fit of pique.”

Merlin laughed, thinking that perhaps things had turned out alright after all.


End file.
